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Wednesday, 14 August 2013

Heavy Penalty

Just a small incident I wish to
share. Krsna has His own ways to instruct. Recently I was caught by the TC; as
my season ticket (monthly pass) expired just the previous day. I had completely
forgotten about renewing my pass. I requested him to excuse me as it was an
honest mistake. But he was very strict and penalized me with an amount which
could have got me a travel for more than 2 months. My mom and friends mockingly
laughed at me. They found it quite amazing because I am always very particular
about having proper tickets, giving rightful fare; just try to follow senior
devotees. But this incident was an epic

for them. My mom said good lesson
for you, some friends said never mind. For me it was very embarrassing.
Although I too laughed at it, but somewhere I was affected by it.

I realized, just a carelessness
of one day, and I was penalized despite of following the ethics all the time
every time. This incident taught me the importance of being alert and careful,
we may have been following the principles and practicing different angas of bhakti
for years, but a moment of carelessness can earn a huge penalty. It may not
take Bhakti away, but will definitely disturb the rhythm of our service. And we
won’t be able to even laugh at it.

Recently we got an opportunity to
serve a senior Vaishnava couple. They explained how in a family Bhakti is like
the youngest baby, like the most precious jewel. We need to take care of it and
nurture it. A moment of inattentiveness or carelessness and Bhakti will slip
away. And in this age of Kali, we cannot afford to waste our time in
re-establishing our mood of service again and again. We need to take things
seriously, and inquire about the truths of life. Every day our sadhna should be
better than the previous day; even a constant level of practice is as good as
degradation. The quality of our sadhna should increase exponentially with the
increasing number of days.

We cannot imagine how many births we have spent without serving Krsna, how many more can we afford to? You never know what the next moment holds for you. We are heading towards a surprise test moment by moment, because not all of us are lucky to know the dates of the Final Test, for most of us it is gonna be a surprise.